Page 100 - Empires of Medieval West Africa

t h e m ande p eople of the m ali Empire

The jeliw’s own security depended on their rulers’ political power
and social prestige. As a result, the stories they told tended to be biased
in favor of their employer’s ancestors, at the expense of their rivals and
enemies.

dugha, chief Jeli of
ManSa SulayMan’S courT
The best description of a jeli from the medieval period comes from Ibn
Battuta, an Arab historian who visited the Mali Empire in 1352–1353
and described its court (as quoted in Levtzion and Hopkins’s Corpus
of Early Arabic Sources for West African History). Standing ready to
address the people with whatever the mansa wished to communicate
was Dugha, his chief spokesman.
As chief of the jeliw, Dugha was one of the best-dressed people at jeliw, Dugha was one of the best-dressed people at jeliw
the Mali court. He wore a turban, fine garments of silk brocade, and
boots with spurs. From his waist hung a sword in a golden sheath, and

CONNECTIONS

The Mande Bala

one of the most famous musical instru-
ments in mande culture is the bala. it has a
bamboo frame bound together by strips of
leather. dried rosewood slabs are fastened
to the frame by cords. the number of slabs
on the bala ranges from 11 to 20, with 19
being the most common. Each slab is a dif-
ferent length, thus producing different tones
when struck by the player’s mallets, which
are tipped with rubber (or latex) tapped
from wild trees. The bala is a traditional Mande instrument,
fastened beneath each slab is a small and often played during sacred rituals or
gourd that acts as a resonator. the gourd has celebrations.
two small holes in its sides that are covered
with a thin membrane made from spider web air passes through the gourds and makes the
or tissue paper. when the slabs are struck, membrane vibrate.